Gary Williams and wife Kay help daughter Trinity manage her money using GoHenry

But they come with fees. GoHenry users are charged £2.99 per child per month, Osper is £2.50 per month and Nimbl £15 per year.

There can be additional charges for some services, such as Nimbl’s 49p fee per withdrawal from UK ATMs — although the first one of each month is free.

But parents with primary schoolkids are not being put off.

Figures from Nimbl, for example, show one in five of its 30,000 users is under 11, and the number of new sign-ups in this bracket has risen from 14 per cent to 27 per cent year on year. The service caters for kids as young as eight.

Henry helped Owain understand his own cash

OWAIN MORGAN, 12, has been using goHenry since he was eight.

His mum Pamela, 49, from Greenwich, South London, says though he is now old enough for a free bank account, she will keep using goHenry for the control it gives her over his spending.

She says: “It took a long time for Owain to grasp the concept of money but goHenry has really helped him manage his finances.

“He does chores to earn cash, which we can keep track of on goHenry, and we pay his pocket money into it using the app.

"He has the app on his iPad so he can see how much money he has and what he has spent it on.

“It’s easy for him to see how much he has to save before he can buy something he wants, such as a computer game or book.

"It makes him realise he has to earn his money – and that he doesn’t always get what he wants unless he saves for it.

“Whenever he buys something, it sends me a text message within 30 seconds of what he bought and where he got it.

“I like to know what he’s spending his money on. If I thought that he was misusing it, I could shut down the card. I can do that on my phone from my office.

“He knows if he does something he is not meant to, I will stop the card.

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Behaviour expert Greg Davies, of consultancy Oxford Risk, says while the apps could be useful for children, it is important for them to handle physical cash.

He says: “Even for adults there’s an awful lot of evidence that the move from cash to debit and credit cards — particularly contactless — increases people’s spending and reduces savings.
“There’s an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ element to to it.”